Category Archives: Variety Mag

Post navigation

Wendy Riss Gatsiounis was a struggling playwright working a temp job in New York City in 1991 when she got what she hoped would be her big break. Her play “A Darker Purpose” had been given a staged reading at the Public Theater, and she had scheduled a meeting with Dustin Hoffman and “Tootsie” screenwriter Murray Schisgal to discuss adapting it into a feature film for Hoffman to star in. “It was a huge thing,” she told Variety.

But, Riss Gatsiounis said, the two meetings that took place at the Rockefeller Center office of Hoffman’s Punch Productions led to confusion and self-doubt after Hoffman allegedly propositioned her and attempted to persuade her to leave the office and accompany him to a store in a nearby hotel. Riss Gatsiounis was in her 20s; Hoffman was 53.

A spokesperson for Hoffman declined to comment. Schisgal told Variety in a statement: “Dustin Hoffman and I took many meetings with writers and playwrights over many years. I have no recollection of this meeting or of any of the behavior or actions described.”

According to Riss Gatsiounis, the first meeting began with Schisgal asking whether she had a boyfriend or husband. Hoffman cut Schisgal off. “Dustin Hoffman was playfully like, ‘Murray, shut up. Don’t you know you can’t talk to women that way anymore? Times are changing,’” Riss Gatsiounis said.

Related

The tenor of the meeting became more professional. Hoffman and Schisgal asked if Riss Gatsiounis would be willing to rework her pitch for a movie version of “A Darker Purpose” with Hoffman in mind. The play — and Riss Gatsiounis’ original movie pitch — featured a protagonist in his 20s. Riss Gatsiounis agreed and spent the next three weeks on the rewrite.

She then had a second meeting with Hoffman and Schisgal to give them the revised pitch. But she never got to discuss the new idea with them.

“I go in, and this time it’s, like, Dustin Hoffman’s really different,” Riss Gatsiounis said. “He says, ‘Before you start, let me ask you one question, Wendy — have you ever been intimate with a man over 40?’” Flustered, Riss Gatsiounis attempted to laugh off the comment. But Hoffman persisted.

“I’ll never forget — he moves back, he opens his arms, and he says, ‘It would be a whole new body to explore,’” she said. “I’m trying to go back to my pitch, and I’m trying to talk about my play. Then Dustin Hoffman gets up and he says he has to do some clothing shopping at a nearby hotel, and did I want to come along? He’s like, ‘Come on, come to this nearby hotel.’”

Riss Gatsiounis added that Schisgal, who was also present, encouraged her to go with Hoffman.

“And Dustin Hoffman finally leaves, because I’m saying I don’t want to go to the hotel,” Riss Gatsiounis said. “And then Murray Schisgal says, ‘Look, we’re not really interested in your play, because it’s too film noir-ish.’ And that was it.”

Punch Productions at the time carried a staff of 10-12 people in an office at 75 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The late ’80s and early ’90s were a prolific time in Hoffman’s career, in which he appeared in several large studio films including “Rain Man,” “Billy Bathgate,” and “Hook.” In addition, Punch — where Schisgal served as a creative executive — developed several projects in which Hoffman starred, including “Tootsie,” “Death of a Salesman,” “American Buffalo,” and “Moonlight Mile.”

Riss Gatsiounis said that she left the meeting and, “close to tears,” called her agent Mary Meagher from a payphone and recounted the meeting to her. “She said that she didn’t want me to think that it was something I had done,” Riss Gatsiounis said. “She had heard rumors about him for years.”

Meagher died in 2006. Variety spoke with two other writers that Riss Gatsiounis was friends with at the time, both of whom said that Riss Gatsiounis described the second meeting with Hoffman and Schisgal to them shortly after it happened and verified her account of it.

“The whole thing was just a source of torment for me,” Riss Gatsiounis said. “I was just this writer and he had been my hero, and it stayed with me for a long time.” She recalled the self-doubt that she experienced in the “months and months and months” that followed, as she wondered whether she had blown an opportunity to advance her career by rebuffing Hoffman: “It was one voice in my head saying, ‘I was such an idiot. I should have just gone.’ And the other voice in my head saying, ‘Well, clearly he just wasn’t interested [in the play]. Why don’t you just realize he just wasn’t interested?’”

“A Darker Purpose” was staged later that year by the New York theater company Naked Angels in a production starring Fisher Stevens. Riss Gatsiounis went on to write the film adaptation, titled “The Winner,” which was directed by Alex Cox and starred Vincent D’Onofrio. She has since found success as a TV writer, working on A&E’s “The Killing” and the CW’s “Reign.” She is currently a co-executive producer on Season 2 of National Geographic’s “Genius,” which tells the life story of Pablo Picasso.

On Wednesday, Anna Graham Hunter, a production assistant on “Death of a Salesman” in 1985, claimed in a guest column in the Hollywood Reporter that Hoffman harassed and assaulted her on set when she was 17 years old.

Hoffman has become the most recent industry heavyweight to be accused of sexual harassment after the New York Times and the New Yorker published exhaustive stories last month detailing decades of abusive behavior by Weinstein — who was subsequently fired from the production company he co-founded, the Weinstein Company.

Since then, Amazon Studios has parted ways with former president Roy Price following a harassment claim against him by a producer on “The Man in the High Castle”; directors James Toback and Brett Ratner have been accused of harassment or misconduct by multiple women; and on Tuesday, Netflix shut down production of “House of Cards” Season 6 after actor Anthony Rapp accused star Kevin Spacey of sexually assaulting him when the “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Rent” star was 14 years old.

Gal Gadot followed in a long line of actors inhabiting their superhero characters in the real world Friday when she visited a children’s hospital dressed as Wonder Woman.

Kids at Inova Children’s Hospital in Annandale, Va. got to meet the star of “Wonder Woman” and the upcoming sequel film “Wonder Woman 1984” — and the staff enjoyed the visit as well.

“Thank you Gal Gadot for visiting us at Inova Children’s Hopsital,” tweeted Dr. Lucas Collazo with a photo of the staff and the actress. “You are a true Wonder Woman. The kids loved it…and so did the staff.”

“Wonder Woman 1984” is in production with recent filming in Washington D.C., and is due out Nov. 1, 2019. Patty Jenkens is returning to direct, and fans can expect to see the return of Chris Pine’s character, who was presumed dead in “Wonder Woman.” Kristen Wiig will star as the villain, Barbara Minerva, also known as Cheetah. See first look photos of Gadot and Pine here and Wiig here.

“Wonder Woman 1984” is the eighth installment in the DC Universe franchise, and the fourth movie featuring Gadot’s Wonder Woman. The first film in the franchise lassoed an incredible amount of moviegoers last summer, earning $821.8 million worldwide including $412.5 million in North America.

The cooperative free-to-play “Warframe” has more than 38 million registered players worldwide. The third-person online action game has players using the Warframe armor as the enigmatic Tenno, a race of ancient warriors wielding blade and gun, who are awakened from centuries of cryo-sleep by the Lotus to restore order throughout the Solar System. Warframe, which is already available on PS4, Windows PC, and Xboc One, features more than 35 Warframes, hundreds of weapons and thousands of customization options, the ability to upgrade weapons armor and items using a flexible mod system, and the ability to join clans, nurture pets, and explore massive new open worlds. It’s unclear how much of the game will be coming to the Nintendo Switch as a port or when that version will arrive.

He also noted that Panic Button has spent more time working on bringing big AAA titles from other platforms to the Switch than most. Adding that his studio has spent nearly six years working with Nintendo’s Switch hardware, including early development tech.

The Oct. 26 event, a luncheon at the agency, is hosted by Ari Emanuel, producer-manager Eric Ortner, songwriter Bruce Roberts, tech consultant Greg Mertz, producer Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, and business executive Jon Vein, according to a copy of an invite.

The event was planned before Schneiderman announced the probe, in which the state attorney general’s civil rights division subpoenaed the company for documents related to settlements of sexual harassment complaints as well as complaints. They also are seeking documents relating to age and gender discrimination complaints.

Schneiderman is expected to run for a third term next year. Tickets for the event are $1,000 per person, and $5,000 to host.

In announcing the investigation of the Weinstein Co., Schneiderman said in a statement, “No New Yorker should be forced to walk into a workplace ruled by sexual intimidation, harassment, or fear. If sexual harassment or discrimination is pervasive at a company, we want to know.”

Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein’s brother, claimed, along with other board members, that they were unaware of the allegations, even though there have been reports that the board was made aware of at least some of the settlements in 2015.

Schneiderman received a $5,000 contribution from The Weinstein Co. in 2014, and in light of the allegations against Weinstein, his campaign said he would give that sum to Sanctuary for Families, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Following a year that has made her a household name after her breakout role in “Girls Trip,” Tiffany Haddish has no plans of slowing down.

With current roles in “The Last OG” and “Uncle Drew,” and soon starring in “Night School” and “Nobody’s Fool,” the funnywoman has a full schedule and even bigger dreams on the horizon. At Hollywood Confidential’s An Evening with Tiffany Haddish in Los Angeles on Friday night, the star told Variety that down the line, “I want to get my production company up and running, be able to provide a lot of jobs for people that actually have talent and skill, I want to still open up those streets — get two streets that intersect called Tiffany and Haddish — open up that youth center, that job placement center, that art center, that mental health center. I really want to give everyone a chance to be their selves.”

As comedy’s current “It” girl, Haddish is fielding plenty of offers, but said her choice of projects hinges on “anything that resonates with my soul I want to do, whether it be dramatic, cartoon, comedy, whatever…makes me feel like it would enhance other women and men and make society better in a way.”

Related

During the conversation, hosted by Hollywood Confidential creator Steve Jones, she elaborated: “When I read scripts, I always think of 16-year-old Tiffany. Would 16-year-old Tiffany want to see this? Would 16-year-old Tiffany be telling all of her friends ‘Guess what I’m about to do, let’s go to the movies, let’s see if we can get a fake ID and sneak into this, you think your big sister would take us to see this?’”

Haddish also detailed her difficult upbringing during the event, telling of being placed in foster care at a young age and working as a struggling comedian while homeless. After the success of “Girls Trip,” though, she found herself in the company of many of Hollywood’s biggest names, some of whom have taken on the role of mentors and advisers.

One of those famous friends is Tyler Perry, who Haddish worked with a few years ago on “If Loving You Is Wrong” and again on the upcoming “Nobody’s Fool.” She said she has repeatedly asked him to teach her how to build an empire like his own. Eventually Perry gave in, and “he started teaching me things, sending me messages when I do stuff, I’ll ask him ‘What’s your advice on this, what would you do, how would you handle this?’”

Perry is not the only one helping Haddish reach success, she added. “After being homeless three times I’m never afraid to ask, ‘Help me, show me, can you teach me.’ I was working with Melissa McCarthy, I was like ‘How do you develop your characters?’ I ask Jada [Pinkett Smith] questions all the time, Queen Latifah, I’m never afraid to ask, ‘How can you help me?’” Haddish credited Smith, her “Girls Trip” co-star, with fashion advice before admitting that the dress she wore to the event she “stole this off the set of ‘Night School,’ you’re gonna see this in the movie. I was like ‘This is a cute dress.’”

On a more serious note, the actress even remembered getting early comedy advice from Richard Pryor and guidance from producer Ralph Farquhar, who was honored at the event with the Legend Award, while Haddish received the Trailblazer Award.

Farquhar, former showrunner of “Real Husbands of Hollywood” and a producer on “Married with Children” and “Moesha,” remembered meeting Haddish early in her career and scolding her for telling dirty jokes to the child actors on the set of TV series “Just Jordan.”

Mara Brock Akil, creator of “Love Is_ ” and “Being Mary Jane,” presented Farquhar with the award, as the producer gave her her start as a writer on “Moesha.”

“Thank you for changing my life, for seeing something in me. Thank you for creating space so that I could do what I do, so that I could have a dream realized. I know I’m not the only one so I’ll speak for everybody, there’s probably thousands of lives that you have touched,” she said, adding that he employed black directors even “back then.” “Production designers, you didn’t hear about black production designers, you were doing that back then…You created space for our stories.”

The Hollywood Confidential is a free panel series designed to educate aspiring actors, producers, directors and writers on the inner workings of the entertainment industry. Past participants include Sterling K. Brown, Issa Rae, Snoop Dogg and Regina King.

Miranda will be honored in a gala dinner set to include a conversation with the creator-star of “Hamilton” and “In the Heights.”

Located in Waterford, Conn., the O’Neill Center runs a series of new-work programs that encompasses both the National Playwrights Conference and the National Music Theater Conference. Miranda developed his first Tony Award-winning musical, “In the Heights,” at the Music Theater Conference in 2005. Last year, the Miranda Family Fund announced it would back scholarships for artists of color to attend the O’Neill’s National Theater Institute, the center’s for-credit training program of theater industry intensives.

The 2018 O’Neill gala, set for April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in midtown Manhattan, is one of a swirl of benefits and charity events that cluster in the final weeks of Tony season. But the inclusion of Miranda, still a focus of media attention given the mega-success of “Hamilton” and the projects developing in its wake, should attract more attention than usual to the event.

The O’Neill has played a role in developing notable projects such as “Avenue Q” as well as plays by August Wilson and John Guare, among others. Miranda joins a list of past Monte Cristo recipients that has included Judith Light, Meryl Streep, Nathan Lane, Christopher Plummer and James Earl Jones.

Following its successful launch in 2017, Conecta Fiction, a pioneering co-production and networking event aimed at connecting the Spanish-language TV drama business in Europe, Latin America and the U.S has unveiled early details of its second edition.

In one significant development, Conecta Fiction 2, which takes place June 18-21, once more in Galicia’s Santiago de Compostela, North-West Spain, will see a higher-profile presence from Movistar+, giant telco Telefonica’s pay TV operator and one of event’s key partners.

Movistar+ has expanded its commitment with the forum backing Conecta Fiction Fest, a fiction series showcase seeking to link the industry to TV audiences, via TV drama screenings in Santiago, Galicia’s capital city.

The organizers of Conecta Fiction 2 will highlight two aspects with current great relevance for the TV contents industry anywhere: Branded content -and its growing importance in TV programming financing- and the ongoing erosion of young and not-so-young TV audiences.

Argentina was the inaugural edition’s guest country, meeting expectations with a powerful delegation of local executives, creators and authorities that explained on panels their sometimes pioneering strategies in Spanish-language TV fiction creation. The Argentine celebration also included world premieres of some of country’s most awaited TV dramas.

Related

At the second edition, two countries, one from Latin America, other from Europe, will see their TV industries honored. Their identities will be unveiled shortly, according to Conecta Fiction director, Geraldine Gonard.

For its debut, Conecta Fiction Fest will showcase new Movistar+ original series.

Having launched to date its first four original productions -”Velvet Collection,” “The Plague,” “Shameless” and “The Zone”- the paybox aims to release by June four more titles: Cesc Gay’s Leonardo Sbaraglia-starrer “Félix,” filmmaker Mar Coll’s “Killing the Father,” Mariano Barroso’s drama “The Day of Tomorrow” and El Rubius’ anime “Virtual Hero.” One Fest’s focus will logically be on many of them.

Aiming to become a global player in TV drama production and distribution, Movistar+ plans to release at least 12 original series a year, also reaching the Latin American TV market via its recently unveiled channel and TV service, Movistar Series.

“TV fiction production is expeeriencing a moment of effervescence, especially in Spain. At Movistar+ we are seeking to boost the industry with a highly ambitious original series production plan,” Ismael Calleja, Movistar+ head of business affairs, series & movies original programming, said on Tuesday at a Conecta Fiction 2 presentation in Madrid.

“In a market where offer and competition are overwhelming, the search for projects which stand apart is key, both in Spain and abroad. Our productions’ launch into the international market also represents a major challenge for us,” he added.

Conecta Fiction2 turns around three fundamental axes, according to Gonard: “Online networking throughout the year, with the event serving as a connecting bridge on both sides of the Atlantic; the co-existence of English and Spanish-languages, as well as a special attention to talent, covering the needs for appropriate contacts among screenwriters, producers and potential co-producers from a project’s very start.”

Its extensive program of professional activities, encompassing panels, case studies, workshops, series screenings and special events will see this year “a smaller number of conferences but of equal quality to the past edition,” said Gonard.

Like Movistar+, Spain’s national pubcaster RTVE has confirmed its continuing status of an event partner. Both companies, as they did last year, will select the winners of development prizes among 10 international co-production projects, plus a further six projects developed at the series lab of Spain’s Fundación SGAE, the General Society of Spanish Authors’ Foundation.

“The greatest recognition you could get is recognition from your peers,” “Dunkirk” production mixer Mark Weingarten said during his acceptance speech, with the crew also giving a shout out to composer Hans Zimmer.

Filling out the film fields, Pixar’s “Coco” won for animated feature while Brett Morgen’s Jane Goodall portrait “Jane” won in the documentary category. This year’s other Oscar nominees for both sound editing and sound mixing are “Baby Driver,” “Blade Runner 2049,” “The Shape of Water,” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

When the winners started to give lengthy acceptance speeches, Kosta joked, “we only have this room until noon tomorrow.”

On the television side at the CAS Awards, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” won its fifth-straight CAS prize in the one-hour series category, while Netflix’s “Black Mirror” won in the TV movie/miniseries field.

Related

HBO’s “Silicon Valley” usurped longtime champ “Modern Family” in the half-hour series category, while “Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge” took the non-fiction/variety/music series award.

“Darkest Hour” director Joe Wright received the organization’s Filmmaker Award, presented by sound engineer Craig Berkey after Gary Oldman, who was scheduled to give the award, came down the flu and sent Berkey to read his speech. Edgar Wright also spoke about Wright, joking that CAS must have thought he was either Wright’s “twin brother or at the very least, one of his emergency contacts.”

“You’re about to be hit with all the pent up sentimentality of all the speeches I haven’t given this season,” Wright said in his speech, referencing “Darkest Hour’s” lack of award circuit wins. He spoke on gaining his childhood love of sound and music from his father, who was a puppeteer, and in terms of his own career, said, “occasionally a well-meaning film-goer will tell me my films are like paintings. Although externally I try to remain polite, internally I am very offended. A film must be conceived and realized as sound and image relating to one another in the wonder of time.”

Last year’s CAS winners included “La La Land,” “Game of Thrones” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”

Glassnote Records, the label that’s home to such critically lauded acts as Phoenix and Aurora, is suing Donald Glover, whose stage name is Childish Gambino, over royalties the company says is owed to them from non-interactive streams of his music.

Since signing with Glassnote in 2011, Glover, as Gambino, has released three albums and a series of mixtapes. His latest release, the Grammy-winning “Awaken, My Love!,” included the hit song “Redbone.”

According to a lawsuit filed on July 6, the label contends it is owed half of some $700,000 Glover has received from SoundExchange for so-called “non-interactive digital performance royalties” — monies paid by such streaming services as Pandora, Spotify, SiriusXM and other webcasters which are considered digital radio. Typically, such royalties would go to the label who would divide the fees based on its contract with the artist. In Childish Gambino’s case, Glassnote was entitled to a 50 percent share of such public performance royalties. The other 50% was due to Glover (45%) and to participating featured artists and producers (5%).

But for reasons which aren’t entirely clear from the lawsuit, other than the license term expiring in 2017 (Glover signed with RCA Records in January), Glover is insisting he’s entitled to 100% of those performance royalties and has been collecting the fees directly from SoundExchange.

Related

For its part, Glassnote reveals that it has already paid Glover $8 million over the life of the contract and anticipates paying him another $2 million before their business with each other is, ostensibly, done. In addition, the suit notes that Glassnote bore all financial risk in launching Gambino and had advanced him monies against future royalties as well as committed to a minimum spend of $200,000 for “Awaken, My Love!” — outlays that Glassnote “far surpassed,” reads the filing.

Per the suit: “In late 2017, the License Agreement expired. Shortly thereafter, Glover, apparently unsatisfied with the approximately $10 million in royalties already paid or due to him by Glassnote and the 45% of the public performance royalties from SoundExchange, took the position that he was entitled to the entirety of Glassnote’s 50% share of public performance royalties from SoundExchange—and that Glassnote was not entitled to any such royalty.”

Glassnote states that it had previously “enjoyed a productive and profitable creative and business relationship.” Glover owned his master recordings but allowed Glassnote exploitation rights But things went south and hit bottom around June 28 when, according to the filing, Glover’s legal representatives demanded “a payment of $1.5 million as well as 100% of the ‘rights owner’ share of SoundExchange royalties on a moving forward basis.” The payment was due, per Glover’s team, on or before July 6.

Glassnote, which was founded by Daniel Glass in 2007 and is based in New York, is represented by Loeb & Loeb in this matter.

It’s a sign of how little most movies channel contemporary experience that the manners and habits and attitudes of the age of Tinder have remained a relatively off-screen topic. This past January, the Sundance drama “Newness,” directed by Drake Doremus (it has yet to be released), was a designer soap opera that had a few telling observations to make about what it feels like to live your life in a digital meat market. As a movie, though, it didn’t quite take hold. The new pulp thriller “Bad Match” is darker, grimier, and more entertaining. Written and directed by David Chirchirillo, who co-wrote the scurrilous violent hipster comedy “Cheap Thrills” (2013), it’s “Fatal Attraction” for the age of the revolving-door hook-up, and in its fevered low-budget way it’s just clever enough to do what it sets out to do. It gives toxic masculinity its just desserts.

Jack Cutmore-Scott, who suggests a randier version of the young Greg Kinnear, plays Harris, a sleazy-smart young L.A. dickwad. He works for an advertising agency, and when he’s not soaking up his time with murder-fantasy video games he’s usually on a hook-up app, where he’ll swipe on 50 women’s photos a day, playing the percentages. He generally winds up in bed with one of them a few hours after they’ve met. Then he sneaks away, never to be seen again, ready to dive back into the shopping mall of sex.

More Reviews

In movies, the cad who discards women as quickly as he finds them is an old trope (if Michael Caine’s Alfie had Tinder, he would have been this dude). But what gives “Bad Match” its twinge of originality is the way that Harris uses technology to seal himself inside an impenetrable bubble of solipsistic male coolness. Even on a date, where his opening gambit is to predict what drink the girl he just met is going to order, he’s staring at her through an imaginary computer screen.

Then he meets Riley (Lili Simmons), a willowy and confident 21-year-old student who seems just as avid in her gullibility as the others, until she fastens onto Harris and won’t let go. She keeps texting, calling, imploring. Is she stalking him? Or is the stalking in the eye of the beholder with the cold shoulder?

Thirty years on, “Fatal Attraction” still looms as a mythical thriller of feminine power. Yes, the Glenn Close character was “crazy,” but she stood in for all the women who ever thought, in the years after the sexual revolution, “I am not just going to be discarded!”

In “Bad Match,” Lili Simmons plays Riley in the same vein, as a spurned object of desire who will lie, manipulate, and shoot over the edge of acceptable behavior, but only to shove her humanity in Harris’ face. She fakes a suicide attempt (a loathsome thing to do — but Harris’ indifferent response is even worse), and by the time she begins to mess with his Twitter account, we’re in a brave new world of payback. Jack Cutmore-Scott, in a strong performance, makes Harris a supremely confident dude coming apart at the seams. When the police knock at his door, and we know in our bones what they’re looking for, the film turns into a cautionary pulp pressure cooker: Live by the digital gaze, die by the digital gaze.

There’s a moment where Riley has snuck into Harris’ apartment and is making a surprise dinner for him, and when Harris discovers her, she’s holding a kitchen knife. Shades of “Fatal Attraction” — but more than that, shades of every cheap thriller that ever introduced a psychological situation only to turn it into something action-y and boring. “Bad Match” often feels like it could become that kind of “ride,” but it never does. It’s something a shade more interesting: a scuzzy bro nightmare.